FPS and Cloth

Attraction

Collaborative Map Making in Minecraft

So today I decided to do some experimentation with Minecraft, using it as a tool to create objects and analyzing it's potential to be used as a multiplayer map maker for games other than itself.

The building we are going to export

JMC2OBJ allows you to export segments of a Minecraft map as an .obj file. For this test I created a simple building (see above) and will attempt to export that into Blender.

Blenders Rendition of the Exported Building

Once the building has been imported to blender we can see a fairly accurate rendition of the building. Minus the correct textures. After adding normals and putting this into a format that my OpenGL program understands we can then try and run it!

OpenGL with SDL

My current application for reading in .obj files for OpenGl sucks and has no camera controls but we can see here that the building itself has rendered correctly. It doesn't have the correct shading but it is a start at least! Also, the .obj can be successfully imported into other programs such as Unity with ease.

.obj with Unity

Although this only gives us simple shapes and basic objects. using this allows us to create simple version of our 3D levels that we can explore and interact with firsts, we can then test the game without the use of artists. At a later stage we can forward these to map artists for texturing and to redo in our own visual style. 

The use of Minecraft as the tool for map creation also allows the team to collaborate on a single level whilst being at many different computers, making edits in real time and seeing the changes immediately.

Let's Play - Sleeping Dogs

What is it?
Sleeping Dogs is a single player open-world action game developed by United Front Games along with Square Enix London Studios. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover police officer in the Hong Kong Police Department who is trying to infiltrate a Triad Gang, the Sun On Yee.

And doing a damn good job too

What is it about?

The game is a third-person, action/adventure with some minor role-play. It is similar to other big games of the same genre such as GTA, L.A. Noire and Assassins Creed but instead tries to make it's own mark by combining several different elements. Instead of playing a straight up Cop or Crook, you play as an Undercover detective. This gives you plenty of freedom to break the rules to maintain your cover which puts a focus on the criminal acts you perform as a means to get things done rather than blindly murdering everyone.

There's a reason for this violance so that makes it ok

Another interesting focus is the martial arts in the game. You don't get to use your first gun until much later on and even then they are sluggish and awkward to use. The combat flows very much like Rocksteady's 'FreeFlow' system from their Batman games, it is however not as refined being quite repetitive and sluggish at times. This is dwarfed however by the games use of Hong Kong as a setting, beautiful lights are contrasted against a city with a rich cultural heritage and mass urban sprawl.

Sleeping Dogs has a few pretty amazing "WOW" moments, the scenary and a few cinematic scenes will still surprise. Lighting effects are top notch and with the high-resolution texture pack installed, many characters look extremely detailed (dare I say, beautiful?). Flashlights occasionally appear on guns which demonstrate this even further.

I like shadows and lights ok?

One major drawback though is the stiff facial animations. This causes many cutscenes to be a let down which is exacerbated by the voice acting. Despite being set in Hong Kong and being influenced by many Hong Kong action films, the majority of the cast speak English in a distinctly american accent. Occasionally people will speak in Cantonese which is great, they even represented a few British and Indian characters too, but sadly this is not often enough.

As pretty as it is I don't expect it to win any wet t-shirt contests.

Where can I get it?
 Sleeping Dogs is available for PC via Steam and OnLive, PS3 and Xbox 360 for around £30.

Winston is pissed because he missed the steam sales...

What do you think?
Sleeping Dogs took a while to grow on me, I was hoping for a more "Hong Kong" experience  It's a step in the right direction though and has a few fun and quirky mechanics. Sadly the game is let down by awkward cameras, overly sensitive driving and poor facial animations. Gunplay pays a distinct homage to John Woo's action films but even this somehow feels wrong. The game acknowledges it's strong points, mainly the martial arts system and keeps that the main focus for much of it. If the designers made everything Cantonese I would've felt a bit better.

Not all of the games ideas miss their target

A good alternative to classics such as GTA but not quite matching it's impact on the genre. A fresh blend of elements, mechanics and an captivating story line keep this game original and fun.

I rate this 7.2/10

Check out the video below for some action packed footage of me playing Sleeping Dogs!

Let's Play : PAYDAY : The Heist

What is it?
PAYDAY : The Heist is a four-player cooperative shooter developed by Overkill Software. You play as one of four robbers (Dallas, Hoxton, Chains and Wolf) who work together on a series of daring heists which range from robbing a bank to breaching a hospital secure wing to steal a blood sample.

Wolf - Chains - Dallas - Hoxton

What is it about?
The game is a first-person shooter in a similar vain to Left 4 Dead but as a group of robbers you must work together to break through each missions security systems, whether that be blowing through walls or using thermite to melt through a safe. You start each heist with your weapons holstered, giving you a short while to scope out the area and set up your first objectives before you accidentally end up alerting the police. Hopefully you can guess what happens after.

My oh my, FBI! 

So far PAYDAY is a pretty fun game for four players. I have yet to work out how to unlock weapons or to change classes but the gameplay is simple enough to be grasped quickly yet complex enough to provide a deeper playthrough. As Overkills first title it is a good sign of things to come, with a good work ethic and team bonding come good games.

Waiting for the cops with a hostage

Where can I get it?
PAYDAY is available for the PC on Steam and Playstation 3 on the PSN store for around £15. Although in PC Gamer 245 they give out a free code for PC users, so get buying! Find out more from Steam here now!

The game allows you to take cops hostage too!

What do you think?
Overall I think that PAYDAY is a very good game, with a nice twist on the four player co-op genre it brings a few interesting features. It's gunplay is fast and intense and although with only 7 missions, each one is wildly different from the last, offering countless hours of replayability. Overkill is set to churn out more DLC in the future though. (Infact they already have one out plus a free mission set at No Mercy from L4D) I have to say that this game has its faults, silly AI, repetitive drilling and sawing sections which could be shortened, but even taking these into account it is great game. Not quite as refined as Left 4 Dead but definitely a welcome alternative.

The entrance to the First World Bank

Well thought out missions, excellent voice acting and a fun, fast experiance make this stand out. A few unexplained elements, too few new gameplay elements as well as dodgy AI drag it's score down.

I rate this 7.8/10. 

Check out the video below for some action packed footage of Craig, Scott and myself kicking butt!

OpenGL - Sierpinski Gaskets

As part of our learning of OpenGL we had to create several different iterations of the Sierpinski Gasket which is a fractal. The pattern itself it created when you divide a triangle down into smaller versions of itself.

Original Triangle followed by 1 subdivision

As we can see here each individual triangle create can then be subdivided again and the same process can be applied to each of the triangles created from that process.

The first Gasket I produced was one using individual pixels and randomly assigning points to render.

500000 Pixel based gasket

The second one used triangles instead to render.

5 Subdivisions

The final gasket on the other hand proved a little more difficult. For a long time we got problem after problem.

Strange...

Finally though! I cracked the problem, and here you can see the actual gasket fully rendered and spinning about!

OpenGL - Phong

Today I was feeling pretty sick so stayed home from going to uni and instead continued with more graphics work.

Here we have a combination of all the different shading techniques I've learned so far and created what is known as Phong shading! You can  read more here

Phong shaded Torus

As you can see the Phong shading gives, overall, a much better shaded effect. Cool stuff!

OpenGL

Added a specular shader to the graphics engine for coursework.

That's no moon...

As we can see it looks similar to the previous ones but it has an added "shininess" property which, if you poke about with it too much, causes this to happen ...

Oh dear ...